affair with
Mr. Crusoe, would be forgotten. Instead, he had accepted ill-gotten
commendation, and received with it the well-disguised scorn of Virginia.
This last was the worst of all.

He wandered down to the corral. If there were a horse around he might
change his clothes and ride. Dave was there, repairing some harnesses.
There were no horses down, he said, except old Ned. They were all on the
range. Carver might ride Ned, or take him to round up the others. For a
moment Carver thought of asking Dave to do the service for him, but the
determined set of the old Scotchman's jaw warned him in time. Dave was
averse to taking orders from a tenderfoot. It was too much like work,
Carver concluded, to round up a decent horse, and to ride Ned would not
alleviate his present mood. He would walk.

Old Dave, intent on his harnesses, did not see Carver jump the farther
boundary of the corral. Had he done so, he would have shouted a warning
not to stray too far on foot across the range. The cattle were being
driven farther down toward the ranch, and they were often averse to
solitary persons on foot.

Carver, all unperceived, climbed the foot-hills, his hands deep in his
pockets, his eyes on the ground. It was all a bad mess, he thought, and
how to get out of it, he didn't know. Of one thing he was certain: the
West was not the place for him. The dreams in which he had lived only
three weeks ago--dreams of opening a branch of his father's business in
the West when he should have finished college--had vanished. He had now
decided he was born to remain a New Englander. There were things about the
West which he didn't like--blunt, unpolished, new things. Of course these
ranchers didn't mind crudities. They could fraternize with ordinary
cow-punchers. Even Donald could do that. But _he_ had been reared
differently. He struck his toe against a rock, which he kicked savagely
out of his way. No, the Standishes were New Englanders, and there they
would remain!

He reached the brow of the first foot-hills, crossed an open space, and
climbed others to the open range above. When he again reached a level he
stopped in surprise. Never had he seen so many cattle. There were
literally hundreds of them. Where had they all come from? He stood still
and stared at them, and they with one accord stopped browsing and stared
at him. They were unaccustomed to persons strolling on foot across their
preserves. For an instant Carver Standish felt a str